12/4/15

Turn body image dissatisfaction into satisfaction

When you train and eat, does your body image dictate your choices in a positive or negative way?

An unhealthy body image in athletes can increase the risk for disordered eating habits.

Avoiding major food groups (carbohydrates), not fueling around/during workouts, skipping meals and snacks and dehydration are some of the examples of unhealthy strategies that athletes often take to gain control over eating in an effort to change body composition/image.

Whether you are an athlete who seeks weight loss/body composition changes to improve overall health, you are an athlete who struggles with body image due to comparison with other athletes, comparison to a past you or overall discomfort with your body image, or you are an athlete who follows a very restrictive diet and extreme exercise routine in an effort to maintain a specific body composition/image which has damaged overall health, irregardless of initial performance gains, it's important to focus on the health of your body...not the image.

You can't live the rest of your life obsessed with an image.

I'm not saying that you can't change the way you look through diet and exercise but I want you to consider why you want to change AND the methods that will elicit a change in image/body composition.

It's very common that athletes who are unhappy with their body will seek a diet strategy that involves restriction or food elimination but claim that they are changing the way they eat/fuel in an effort to improve performance.
It's also common that athletes will follow no extreme style of eating or diet but just focus on eating for fuel and for nourishment and achieve their goal body image and performance gains.

Many athletes are led to believe that food restriction/elimination is the only way to change/improve body composition.

I am here to tell you that that thinking is not accurate.

You CAN change your body composition and eat before a workout.

You CAN lose weight by eating carbohydrates.

You CAN feel comfortable with your body image.

A dissatisfaction for your body composition can lead you to believe that if you lose weight or change your body composition (get a flatter stomach, decrease your thigh size, get a more muscular butt, etc.) you will enhance your appearance, improve performance or improve your health.

But the problem isn't your body but instead, what you think about your body.

When an athlete feels as if losing weight/changing body composition is the only, best or necessary way to improve performance, restrictive eating and/or overexercising may result, often causing disordered eating patterns.

A preoccupation with body image may affect training in that every workout could be affected by what you didn't eat (but should have eaten) or is controlled by what you did eat (feeling guilty).

This is not the way that you should be training or thinking.

Learn to love food.

For sport RD's who work with athletes, we educate on seeing food for fuel and for nourishment. For myself, I educate on learning how to have a better relationship with food and the body in addition to mastering healthy eating and nailing sport nutrition (I specialize in endurance triathlon sport nutrition).

For nutrition professionals, it is important that any athlete who has a body image obsession or concern, that he/she is detoured from any mass-marketed diet that involves food elimination/restriction.

If you are uncomfortable with your body image, it is important to ask yourself why.

Why don't you thank your body more often?

Why do you need to change the way you look?

Why don't you love yourself?

Why do you take such extreme measures to change the way you look when you should be focusing on food for fuel and for nourishment?

Don't destroy your health in an effort to get healthier.

Don't restrict energy when your goal is to have more energy to workout longer, harder or faster.

2016 Trimarni Coaching Team Sponsors

IM Austria '16

IM Kona '15

IMWI '14

IM Austria '14

IM Kona '13

IM Lake Placid '13

Kona '11

IMWI '10

IMKY 09

Kona 07

IMFL 06

Boston Marathon 06

My First Triathlon!

Subscribe to the Trimarni Newsletter

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

Welcome to Trimarni!

The Trimarni mission is to help athletes reach performance goals without compromising health.
Marni has a great understanding of physiology of the human body during exercise and how food affects a body in motion.
She focuses her time helping triathletes and runners learn how to maximize fitness while keeping the body in good health. Marni is well educated in the areas of sport nutrition (for training and racing) and triathlon coaching, exercise physiology and strength training, for athletes of all fitness levels. She specializes in endurance training and sport nutrition, with a great understanding of the metabolic, immune and hormonal stress that occurs when training for a long distance event. Behind every great athlete is a well planned diet - she also helps athletes create great daily nutrition habits to support consistent training.
Marni is passionate about helping athletes train smarter in order to reach performance, body composition and health goals faster.
Karel is an experienced RETUL bike fitter and bike mechanic and is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to all things bikes and cycling.
Marni and Karel coach a team of triathletes alongside providing services to triathletes, cyclists and runners.

About us

Marni holds a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology and she is a Board Certified Sport Dietitian who specializes in coaching and sport nutrition for endurance athletes. Marni is passionate about helping athletes of all levels learn how to fuel and eat to maximize performance, while keeping the body healthy. She is a 11x Ironman finisher including 4 Ironman World Championship finishes. In, 2015, Karel and Marni both competed in the 2015 IM World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. Marni holds an Ironman PR of 10:06 (2016 Ironman Austria), where she had the fastest overall female swim time (57.06) and placed 2nd AG (30-34), finishing fastest amateur female American and 4th amateur female (10th overall female). Marni is a well-known writer and contributes frequently to Ironman, Triathlete Mag, USAT and can be found quoted in other publications like Runner's World, Shape, Women's Running, Fitness and Men's Health. Marni is enjoys public speaking and working one-on-one with athletes at camps and clinics. Marni is a long-time lacto-ovo vegetarian (since the age of 10) as she loves animals.

Karel is an accomplished Cat 1 cyclist turned Ironman triathlete. He was the former general manager of the Trek Bicycle store in Jacksonville, FL and now works at Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition as a coach and RETUL bike fit expert. Karel has successfully completed 6 Ironman distance triathlons and has qualified for the Ironman World Championship twice (in 2014 at IMWI and in 2016 at IMMT). He holds an Ironman PR of 9:13 (2016 IM Austria) and at 2016 Ironman Mont Tremblant, he clocked the fastest amateur male run split (3:08) of the day.

When Marni and Karel are not working, they can be found cooking/eating, exploring Greenville, SC or spending time with their four-legged furry child Campy.